Gary Alperovitz says co-op businesses are rooted to the community, and that gives the Evergreen Cooperative a long term customer base.(Photo courtesy of Julie Grant)
Many people think the idea of business co-operatives is a leftover from the hippie generation. In a co-op, the workers own and manage the company. But there’s a new resurgence in the co-op model: there are new co-op bakeries, solar companies, and laundries. Julie Grant reports about these new employee-owned, often green-focused businesses.
Transcript
Many people think the idea of business co-operatives is a leftover from the hippie generation. In a co-op, the workers own and manage the company. But there’s a new resurgence in the co-op model: there are new co-op bakeries, solar companies, and laundries. Julie Grant reports about these new employee-owned, often green-focused businesses.
The last few years have been tough in many inner city neighborhoods. Around the area known as University Circle in Cleveland some experts think the poverty rate is 40-percent. The streets are lined with boarded up, foreclosed homes, and the signs of poverty are everywhere: drugs, crime, and unemployment.
So, Mienyan Smith is glad to have a job. She’s 31-years old and has five kids.
She sorts laundry into large bins – blue blankets in one, white sheets in another. But this isn’t the same as any other job. Smith and the other eight workers are all about to become part owners.
“WE ALL HAVE A GOAL TO EVENTUALLY OWN THIS FACILITY. AND WE WANT IT TO ALSO EXPAND, SO WE WORK HARDER, TO LET THEM KNOW THAT ‘HEY, WE’RE IN IT FOR THE LONG HAUL.’”
Smith and the other workers will ‘buy in’ to the cooperative. Since none of them has the 3-thousand dollars upfront, they will each give 50-cents an hour from their paycheck.
Jim Anderson is with the Employee Ownership Center at Kent State University. He signed the papers for 6-million dollars in loans to start-up the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry.
In 3 years, he says the first 9 employees will be owners…
“THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO BE INVOLVED IN DECISIONS. THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE PURCHASING SIDE OF THE BUSINESS. SUPPLIES. WHAT THOSE COSTS ARE. THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE PAYROLL SIDE. THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE QUALITY ISSUES THAT CUSTOMERS HAVE.”
Even in the best of times this would be a challenging task. So, starting a worker-owned business during a recession might seem down right crazy. But Anderson says Evergreen is on track to succeed. Their workers really care about the success of the business.
Plus, the co-op has a market advantage. It’s made significant investments to be an environmentally friendly laundry. They bought washing machines with special energy efficient motors that save millions of gallons of water, and they purchased no-steam ironing presses that use less energy…
“WHERE, EVERYTHING ELSE BE EQUAL, WE’RE THE GREEN LAUNDRY. WE’RE GOING TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT MORE THAN ANYBODY ELSE WILL AND WE CAN SHOW WHY THAT IS. AND WE THINK, GIVEN THAT, WE’LL GET THE NOD FROM THE CUSTOMER.”
The co-op’s customers are mostly hospitals, nursing homes and hotels.
Gary Alperovitz says those types of businesses are rooted to the community – and that gives the Evergreen Cooperative a long term customer base.
Alperovitz is author of the book “America Beyond Capitalism.”
He says Americans are sick of overpaid CEOs and companies that abandon a community as soon as they find better tax breaks or cheaper labor…
“BUT COOPERATIVELY OWNED COMPANIES AND WORKER OWNED COMPANIES IN GENERAL, SINCE THE PEOPLE LIVE THERE, RARELY GET UP AND LEAVE TOWN AND GO TO THE SUN BELT. THEY ARE VERY GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY BECAUSE THEY ARE ANCHORED THERE.”
The Cleveland Model, as Alperovitz calls it, includes more than just the laundry. Evergreen has also opened a Co-op Solar Company, that employs a dozen inner city workers, and plans to hire up to 100 people. A Co-op greenhouse and a co-op newspaper are already in the works in Cleveland. Each intends to the be greenest company in its sector.
Alperovitz says the focus on green businesses is unique to Cleveland, but communities all over the U.S. are starting to look at the co-op business model:
“THERE’S A LOT OF SLOGANS, BUT THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DOESN’T CHANGE, THE LOCAL ECONOMY DECAYS, THE TAX BASE DECAYS, THE ENVIRONMENT DECAYS. AND THE QUESTION BECOMES ‘ARE WE GOING TO SOMETHING OURSELVES? OR ARE WE GOING TO ALLOW THE DECAY TO GO ON?’”
In Cleveland, they expect the group of Co-op businesses to employ up to a-thousand people in the next five years – all from the neighborhoods that need the help. The plan is to start stabilizing the inner city one street at a time…
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
